Open AccessCurriculum Integration and the Forgotten Indigenous Students: Reflecting on Métis Teachers’ Experience
Author(s) -
Carmen Gillies
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
in education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1927-6117
DOI - 10.37119/ojs2021.v26i2.477
Subject(s) - indigenous , curriculum , critical race theory , essentialism , economic justice , sociology , pedagogy , indigenous education , qualitative research , racism , critical theory , inclusion (mineral) , australian curriculum , traditional knowledge , gender studies , mathematics education , political science , psychology , social science , law , project commissioning , ecology , publishing , biology
Curriculum integration, or in other words, changing what students are taught within racially desegregated Canadian schools, has served as a primary but incomplete pathway to racial justice. In this paper, I present evidence from a qualitative critical race theory (CRT) methodological study with 13 Métis teachers to demonstrate how curricular integration has been framed as a key solution to inequitable outcomes concerning Indigenous students. This strategy has been instilled within the Saskatchewan K–12 education system by a wide spectrum of authorities over several decades. Although absolutely essential for multiple reasons, I argue that teaching students about Indigenous knowledge systems and experiences, as well as anti-racist content, cannot resolve the systemic racial injustices encountered by Indigenous students who attend provincial schools. In particular, three CRT analytical tools—structural determinism, anti-essentialism, and interest convergence—are utilized to examine the limitations of curricular integration as a strategy of racial justice.
Keywords: Métis teachers; Indigenous education; critical race theory; integrated schools